WHO WE ARE

Posted March 5, 2014 by ijan

IJAN is an international network of Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to struggles for human survival and emancipation, of which the liberation of the Palestinian people and land is an indispensable part. We are committed to the right of return for Palestinian refugees and to ending Israeli colonization of historic Palestine, which is reinforced by US economic and military power. We support full Palestinian self-determination and the right to resist occupation. We look to the Palestinian grassroots and Palestinian-led organizations as our primary points of reference in this struggle.

The State of Israel betrays the long histories of Jewish struggles for liberation and traditions of participation in collective struggles for liberation more broadly. We protest Zionism’s exploitation and debasement of histories of Jewish persecution and genocide to justify the unjustifiable – the colonization of Palestine and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the theft of their land and destruction of their families, communities and way of life.

IJAN is part of the international movement against Zionist militarism and repression. We have active chapters in the United States, Argentina, the UK, Spain, Canada, and France. We also organize by sector, and currently maintain labor and campus sectors. Our work is funded largely through the contributions and volunteer labor of our members and through grassroots supporters.

IJAN organizes from a Jewish location, which we understand as social and historical, but our members hold a range of relationships to the religious, spiritual, and cultural expressions of Judaism. IJAN’s members come from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and cultural lineages (including Ashkenazi, Mizrahi and Sephardic). We view “Jewish Anti-Zionism” as a political orientation rather than an identity, a politics which acquires meaning through practical organizing.

A core tenet of the way IJAN organizes is joint struggle — recognizing the particular stakes of different communities and sectors in the general struggle against Zionist repression, militarism, and imperialism. The stake of each movement is specific, but we share a commitment to principles of universal liberation, justice, equity, never sacrificing any aspect of one community or movement’s struggle for freedom for the sake of advancing another’s. We recognize that our struggles are bound together, and that we must find ways of organizing together that strengthen all of our movements.